Communist Cuba shuts down schools, state-owned workplaces as huge blackout leaves millions in dark
A massive outage left millions of Cubans without power and prompted the government Friday to implement emergency measures to slash dem🦹and, including suspending classes, shutting down some state-owned workplaces and canceling non-essential services.
Cubaꦗn officials said that the blackout, which started late Thursday, saw 1.64 gigawatts go offline during pea🅠k hours in the early evening, about half the total demand at the time.
“The situation has worsene๊d in recent days,” Prime Minister M꧟anuel Marrero said in a special address on national television in the early hours of Friday.
“We must be fully transparent … we have been halting economic activities to ensure energy for the population.”
During his address, Marrero was accompanied by Alfredo López, chief of the state-owned utility, UNE, who said the outage stemmed from increased demand from small- and medium-sized companies and residences’ air conditioners, as well as breakdowns in old thermoelectric plants that haven’t been proper📖ly maintained and the lack of fuel to operate some facilities.
Changes to electricity rates for small- and medium-sized companies, which have proliferatedꦍ since they were first authorized by the𝕴 communist government in 2021, are also being considered, Marrero said.
Marrero sought to placate people’s concerns about the outage, citing an expected influx of fuel supply f♛rom Cuba’s state-owned oil company.
Even in a country accust൩omed to frequent outages amid a deepening economic crisis, the size of ꦇThursday night’s blackout left millions of Cubans on edge.
Residents shut their doors and windows they typically leave open at night, and candle🦄s or lanterns were visi🍰ble inside their homes.
